“Yes.”
My wolf surges forward eagerly, muscles coiled tight.
We move as a pack, silent shadows slipping into the tree line.Night presses in around us.Cool.Dense.Familiar.The moon hangs low but narrow, not full.Not yet.My wolf prowls under my skin anyway, riding the razor’s edge of instinct.
Christian walks ahead and slightly to my right.Russo and Jameson melt deeper into the dark like wraiths.Julian and Cooper slip around back like cats.We’ve done this before, but never when the stakes were my heart.
The cult compound emerges through the trees in pieces.A fence.A gravel road.The outline of the farmhouse.A single light glows dimly behind dusty curtains in a far-off building.
My hearing sharpens, filtering through the hum of insects, the whistle of the wind, and the rustle of the leaves, until it finds what it’s searching for.
Breathing.Soft, uneven, strained.
Mate, my wolf howls.
I feel his pain.It magnifies mine tenfold.
I angle my head.“She’s still in there.They haven’t moved her.”
Christian nods.
We tense and wait for Jameson’s low whistle, the signal that the perimeter is clear.
Seconds stretch.
Then—
There.The single note breaks the quiet, and we move.
Christian approaches first, his steps careful and steady.Cooper flanks the right corner.I take the porch, feeling every creak of old wood under my boots like gunfire.
The doorknob turns easily.
Unlocked.
Idiots.
We enter, and the smell hits first.
Rotting wood.Old dust.Damp air.
And beneath it—her.
I swallow, my heartbeat slamming harder against my ribs.
We move through the front room.A sagging couch.A broken lamp.A pile of dishes on a crate that passes for a table.
Then down the hall.
Christian starts clearing the rooms, but I move with purpose straight to the second door on the left.
I don’t breathe as I push it open.
There she is.
Lying on a stained mattress.Hands bound.Ankles tied.Dark hair fanned around her face.Skin pale.Lips parted slightly as she struggles for each breath around the gag.
My wolf goes silent.He’s not calm, far from it.Just… reverent.
